A Rupture in the Field of Representation: Animals, Photography and Affect

A Rupture in the Field of Representation: Animals, Photography and Affect Recruiting Strangers and Friends: Moral Shock and Social Networks in Animal Rights and Anti-Nuclear Protests. Reviewed by Matthew Brower

 {curator of the University of Toronto Art Center; book is Animal Traces: Early American Animal Photography.}

This essay deals with how photographic affect by using animal photography. Barthe's

concept of punctum is used to look at the importance of animality related to the concept. Jacques Derrida is also brought up and his work on animality.

Jasper and Poulsen feel that animal rights activists encounter images of animal suffering and use activism as a response to the suffering imposed within the photographs. The response is referred to as "moral shocks," which they describe as, "when an event or situation raises such a sense of outrage in people that they become inclined toward political action, even in the absence of a network of contacts." Activists used the images to attach meaning and symbols that have adding meaning as a recruitment tool. The moral shocks help to develop the animal activist groups.

John Berger's canonical argument of photographs of animals used to reinforce this separation among humans and animals and humans. {Find out if I can get Berger's book Why Look At Animals?} Photographs can show us how animals remain separate from humans and our society has completely disconnected from the animals.

Jonathan Burt {Book Animals in Film} looks at the potential affect animals have in

emotional responses. Animals can signify a "rupture in the field of representation" The body of the animal act, however, they can't perform any function. The essay further explores Burt's analysis of animals in film. The most important part of Burt's argument is that the filmic punctum of animal bodies isn't a private matter, but rather social and political.

The anaylsis of Burt is used for the reader to understand Barthes's punctum. Barthes discusses the studium and the punctum in Camera Lucida. The punctum, which is most important for this essay, is when the photographs expose a wound and something that is outside the image. He refers to this as "madness." The image in the photograph shows us something dead or a horrifying event. It exposes our own finitude.

Barthes's punctum is seen as a singular and unsharable event; however the punctum 

can't function without sharing of the finitude. The essay then goes into describe other's ideas on animals and death. Akira Lippit believes that in the Western way of thinking the emphasize the animals inability to comprehend death. Derrida argues that animals have to signify that they are social beings. The "madness" of the image in any photograph is "the spectral logic of hauntology."The madness in the photographs are unable to be maintained because we have to share 

the wound that has been exposed to the viewer. The animals haunt the Camera Lucida and if we are able to find away to take animals seriously, we can understand how the 

punctum has an affect to the social realm.

_______________________________

Thoughts:

This article was very interesting. I am wondering what it means that this is a Review Essay. I thought that this article was very concise and easy to follow. Brower brought up some really valid points and was able to call upon some major authorities on the topic. I really need to further explore Jaques Derrida because I have seen his name mentioned in a lot of the articles that I have come across on the topic of animal rights in the arts. I was able to pull some great information on ideas that I wasn't aware of before, one of them being the idea of the punctum. This was new to me and very fascinating. The bibliography of the article is going to be extremely helpful to me because it provides a lot of resources that I believe will be of value to me topic!

I haven't thought about exploring photography as the object of my paper prior to reading this essay. I think that photography is an important medium and sometimes can be overlooked. I do believe that photography of animal rights

issues can have a big impact on society. I will need to further explore photographers who deal with the topic.